


Kuroo is dumb

by assasinduckie



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, I was supposed to be writing other stuff, M/M, but this was so funny I had to
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 17:20:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29264169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/assasinduckie/pseuds/assasinduckie
Summary: Kuroo doesn't know how to tell Kenma he wants more than kissing late at night.
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou, Kozume Kenma/Kuroo Tetsurou
Comments: 18
Kudos: 138





	Kuroo is dumb

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this to take a break from writing another longer fic. I think it's pretty funny.  
> Enjoy!

It started to happen organically. They had always slept together in the same bed, hugging each other, a habit that Kuroo had picked up as a kid, to hug one of his stuff animals, and that he had quickly replaced by hugging Kenma, or in the absence of him, a pillow. So, the comfortable, seamless physical contact was already there. Meaning, whenever their sleeping schedules lined up, which wasn’t so often. What was more likely to happen was that he would fall asleep on Kenma’s bed while he played with on his game console and at some point during the night he would mumble “at least get on the bed” or something similar and Kenma would obey and Kuroo would curl up around him, like a cat, keeping him warm.

But then he began waking up when Kenma finally decided to go to sleep, like really wake up, clear mind and completely open eyes, and would blame him for it and so Kenma would make up for it by caressing him back into dreamland. And then, by the time he was at his last year of school, the slow caressing of Kenma’s small hands on his arms, his torso and his head (he specially loved when Kenma gently combed his hair with his fingers) began to include their faces getting so close to each other that kissing was just the easiest thing, what came naturally. They would kiss slowly, lazily, and the next morning he was never able to remember when they had stopped, just how you can’t never remember the moment before you fall asleep.

Kenma would act as if nothing had happened and so did him. Sometimes he wasn’t even sure he hadn’t dreamed those moments, they always felt so ethereal in his memory, in a way that only things that happen very deep into the night feel. It didn’t even happen that often. Maybe once or twice a week if he was lucky.

Sometimes, he would convince himself he had to stop. Something about it didn’t sit right with him. Friends that mess around sometimes wasn’t what he wanted, he knew that, but sometimes he also thought it was the best he could get and that he should take it. He pivoted between those two notions, the everything’s okay one, and the I have to tell him we have to stop one. But every time, without a fail, when it came to the moment, that split second when he knew it was about to happen, when he felt the way Kenma looked at his lips with hunger, he couldn’t master a single reason not to go with it. So, he did.

“At least you’re getting smooched.” Told him Bokuto one day, at night during a training camp, after hearing him complain about his predicament for over half an hour. “And you sleep together all the time. I’ve even hidden the futon to try Akaashi to sleep with me and he just went and made his bed in the couch. He didn’t even ask!”

“Would you have told him if he had asked where the futon was? That he could just sleep with you?” Bokuto considered the question, frowning his brows. Kuroo was surprised that there wasn’t visible smoke coming out of his ears.

“I don’t know! That’s not the point… it’s like he doesn’t even consider it. I don’t understand. I _know_ he likes me.”

“Everyone knows he likes you.” He agreed, nodding.

“Right?? And **yet**!” he sighed dramatically. “What am I supposed to do? I don’t think I can be any more obvious about it…”

“Maybe you could just tell him.” Said Kenma and Kuroo felt his heart might have beat out of his chest. He turned around to look at him. He was playing on his switch, a towel over his shoulders, already wearing his pyjamas.

“How… how long have you been here?” he asked, desperately trying to keep a nonchalant tone.

“I just got here.” He answered, his eyes still not straying from the game he was playing. Kuroo could hear the faint noises that the music and sound effects made. Then Kenma proceeded to sit next to Kuroo on the couch, resting his back on the armrest and lazily placing his legs on top of Kuroo’ _s_. Kuroo saw, more than anything, how his own arm automatically came to rest on top of Kenma’s legs. He was wearing his socks over his pants and it was ridiculous, and he loved it. Had he really just arrived?

“What do you mean tell him?” asked Bokuto, after deciding to ignore the whole domestic fluff situation.

Kenma finally stopped playing, probably because he had won, and looked up to Bokuto.

“Well, if he hasn’t realised yet by your actions… just explain them in words.” He said, his voice as soft and levelled as usual.

“He means tell him you love him.” Explained Kuroo.

“Do you really think he doesn’t know?” Bokuto asked, pinching his eyebrows in concern, suddenly bummed out.

“He would have to be stupid not to know” answered Kenma, placing his eyes back on his switch.

“Well, we are all stupid in love.” Added Kuroo and then he panickily looked at Kenma, but the boy showed no reaction, which wasn’t saying much, really. “Maybe he knows you love him, but he doesn’t know you want to be in a relationship with him.” He offered, when Bokuto began making sounds like he was a sad puppy.

“Why would anyone love someone and not want to be in a relationship with them?!” Bokuto asked and Kuroo could see they were approaching overheated brain stage again.

“Lots of reasons” said Kenma and Kuroo decided to unpack that later.

“Like what?” implored Bokuto, now looking at Kenma. Okay, maybe he would have to do that now.

“Maybe he thinks it’s better to keep it like this while you’re Captain. Maybe he isn’t interested in anything serious right now, or maybe nothing at all. Maybe he thinks you haven’t realised you’re in love with him and is waiting for you to acknowledge it. Maybe his family isn’t okay with him being with a guy, maybe he isn’t okay with being with a guy, maybe he thinks it would affect his career or it would affect yours-“  
“Okay okay, I think that’s enough” said Kuroo, interrupting him because he could see Bokuto falling down a whirlwind of despair. “What’s important is that the only thing you need to do to know… is just talk to him about it.” Bokuto sat there for a couple more seconds before taking a deep breath and resolutely stating

“Okay then.” and standing up and stomping out of the room.

“Oy! I didn’t mean right now!!” he shouted but he was already gone. “Fuck. I think he’s gonna do it right now, isn’t he?”

“Yep.”

“Fuck, Akaashi’s gonna kill me. We still have 2 more days of training camp and no matter how it goes it will completely throw his focus off.”  
“if it wasn’t this it would have been obsessing over the whole thing like today.” Kenma said, his eyes not straying from the game.

“Mmm, maybe you’re right.” He sighed and leaned back into the couch. Then he realised he had been absentmindedly stroking Kenma’s legs with his hand. He stopped abruptly, which caused Kenma to look at him, probably thinking he was about to say something. But he couldn’t think of a single thing to say so he just smiled, trying to make it less of his trademark shit-eating grin and more like a sincere smile. A light blush spread through Kenma’s cheeks before he smiled back.

Were they not dating because he was the captain? Or was it because any of those other reasons? He knew it wasn’t the last one. Kenma’s parents had outright told him they would very much like to call him their son in-law, they had even given him a key, and talked about how they would like his son to marry at the same shrine they had… when Kenma wasn’t even there to listen. And his own parents already treated Kenma as if he was his son’s boyfriend, since he was like 13 years old, winking at him whenever he said he was spending the night (during the first years before he realised what he felt for Kenma the winking thing had been very confusing). But yeah, their parents were very cool about it, they had been really lucky in that aspect. But maybe it worried him what other people thought. Or not what they thought, but what they would do. Kenma tried to remain as invisible as possible most of the time. Maybe he felt something like that would call too much attention to him, make him a target. His head was starting to ache from thinking of all the possibilities and he realised he had been quite a hypocrite when he told Bokuto to just talk to Akaashi, when it was exactly what he wasn’t daring to do. After all, Bokuto was right, at least he knew for sure that Kenma felt attracted to him and cared about him. That wasn’t in question, he would never let him be that close if it wasn’t the case.

He was about to take the necessary leap of faith to finally voice the concerns that had had him worrying the whole year when he heard his name being called by Yaku. Automatically, Kenma retracted his legs, just a couple seconds before Yaku got into the room. He didn’t even look up to Kuroo, he just kept playing.

“Kuroo! I’ve been calling you! Lev and Inuoka started a pillow fight and you know that if they stay up past their bedtime it’s impossible to get them to sleep…”

“okayokay, I’m coming.” He said, standing up. He looked down at Kenma. “If you don’t come to sleep in 5 minutes I’ll be back and take that thing away from you.” Kenma looked at him and deadpanned

“I would like to watch you try.” But he knew that he probably wouldn’t need to. And effectively, a couple minutes after he had managed to cool everyone down and sent them to sleep, Kenma showed up in the room and went to occupy his futon, right next to Kuroo, as usual. He fell asleep quickly, clearly exhausted, leaving Kuroo alone, his head rumbling with thoughts. He had clearly not wanted Yaku to know about them. Whatever them was. Why was that? He felt like he had been punched in the stomach. It took him a while to finally fall asleep.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------

After that several days went by during which he either didn’t stay at Kenma’s or if he did, he got up to do his morning training regime by the time Kenma was going to sleep. It felt like they were disconnected, just a tiny bit out of reach, but enough for them to fall out of pace from their well-known rhythm.

They were at school at lunch time one day, when he got a text. It was Bokuto. Of course it was Bokuto, he had been texting non-stop since the training camp, during which he had officialised his relationship with Akaashi. He told him about every single thing they did and every conversation they had and Kuroo was beginning to wonder if he had made a mistake helping them get with each other. He decided to show Kenma the text, which was a photo of Bokuto and Akaashi walking while holding hands, taken from behind, with a message that read “look at the picture Yamato took of us??? Isn’t it beautiful??”. He had shown him the photo with the intention to complain about Bokuto’s constant texting but before he could say anything Kenma went

“Cute.” And he had to take a moment to bounce back from the shock. When he did, he spared the picture one more look.

“I guess it is.” And then he changed the subject, not thinking back to it during the rest of the day. So, when while going back from school after practice that day, he felt Kenma’s hand crawling inside his own, he completely froze. He looked at Kenma but he was just looking at his phone. When they were little, he sometimes did this to be able to keep playing games while walking through the snowed sidewalks or terrains where he felt he might fall. But it was a bright spring day and there were no obstacles in sight.

He took a deep breath. While he had come to the conclusion the night before that he would finally tell him they should stop, his brain reasoned that this was different, it was not in the middle of the night, and there where people that passed him and Kenma didn’t move his hand, he wasn’t trying to hide it. So, he squeezed back and smiled at him, with his usual grin. Kenma just smiled back and continued playing with his phone all the way back to his room, where they miraculously went to sleep at about the same time (it was way past bedtime for Kuroo, and way too early for Kenma). Before falling asleep Kenma offered his back to be spooned and Kuroo complied, happily. Maybe he was worrying about nothing. Maybe they were just moving very slowly. And if that was what Kenma needed, it was alright by him.

But after that, a couple more weeks went by, and even if the holding hands while walking to school stayed in the repertoire, nothing else changed. They were still not physical in front of their friends, and only kissed at night, and not very often. And each time they did, Kuroo felt increasingly less happy about it, to the point where he wasn’t really even enjoying it anymore. He wanted it but he wanted it no restraint, no hiding, not an exception, but a rule. He realised he was reaching his breaking point. He couldn’t keep it up anymore. And so he informed Kenma, one night at 4 a.m., after they had just started kissing.

“what?” Kenma answered, looking extremely confused and sleepy. Kuroo sat up on the bed, instantly regretting his words but knowing there was no way around it.

“I’m sorry. I just can’t do this anymore.” He said, looking at anywhere except Kenma’s face.

“Oh” he heard, but it was so quiet he thought maybe he had imagined it. After what felt like forever Kenma spoke again. “Why?” he sounded hurt so Kuroo looked at him and he also looked hurt and really confused and he felt so guilty he could cry, but that would make it even more awful, so he didn’t. Instead, he just expressed his frustration via noises.

“I just… aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrgggggggggg, I just… I want more!” Kenma looked just confused now.

“More? Like, more than kissing? You don’t want to kiss anymore because you want more than kissing?”

“No… well, that wouldn’t be so bad but.. no, wait, that’s not what I meant.” He backtracked, when he recovered from the fire that the mental image of them doing _more than kissing_ had lit in his lower stomach.

“What _did_ you mean?” Kenma asked, frowning at him like he was getting mad. Kuroo realised he would have to explain himself better. He really had dug his grave there. He took a steading breath and began with

“I don’t want to just kiss or hold hands when there’s no one we know around. Or sleep in the same bed hugging each other and pretend it didn’t happen. I guess... I guess I want a relationship? You know, like Bokuto and Akaashi.” He looked at Kenma feeling a bit hopeful, but he didn’t know what to make of his expression, because it was migrating from annoyed to indignant.

“WhAT?” It was Kenma’s turn to take a deep breath. He looked at Kuroo like he had suddenly grown another head. “Kuroo… we **ARE** in a _relationship_.”

“Wait what.”

“What did you think this was???” he near shouted, sounding the more exasperated he had ever heard him sound like.

“Just… boys being boys?” he tried.

“Boys being boys WHO **KISS**???”

“Some boys do that…” he said, but he realised he was defending his ground like he didn’t know it was quicksand.

“Kuroo… I – I don’t know what to say to you right now.” At least he didn’t look angry anymore, just really bewildered.

“I just thought… because we never did it unless it was like this. . . and you never held my hand or anything like that in front of our friends… And we never talked about it…”

“I didn’t think there was much to say… I’ve been in love with you for years, I thought you knew that. I thought it was obvious. And if it wasn’t, well, I thought you would get it after I kissed you. Repeatedly”

“And the friends thing?” he offered, the last of his reasons crumbling in his head.

“Kuroo… you never tried to do anything either. I just thought you didn’t feel comfortable letting our friends know and I was okay with it. I don’t mind going slow…” he took a moment to absorb all of this new information, while Kenma continued to look at him like he was the dumbest person in the planet, which, he didn’t think was far off.

“Fffffffffffffuck!” he said finally and slapped his face with both his hands. “I’m so fucking dumb”

“ _Yes_.” Kenma agreed fervently. And after some consideration, and a tired sigh, he added “But I guess it’s true I shouldn’t have assumed you just knew how I felt.”

“You assumed how _I_ felt, and you were right.” He whined and Kenma smiled at him.

“Yes, but I’m really good at that and you’re really fucking transparent” He said, his smile turning smug.

“So how long have we been dating?” he asked, genuinely curious.

“Aparently 5 minutes, since I’m pretty sure both parties need to know in order for it to actually be dating.” Kenma answered, raising one eyebrow.

“Come on… you know what I mean…” he insisted, poking his finger in Kenma’s side. He sighed before responding.

“Like 8 months I guess.”

“You don’t remember the date???”

“Not really. I thought you would… I could look for it tho.”

“Look for it where?”

“In my emails. I told Shouyo about it.” Kuroo let out a long groan before flopping back on the bed.

“I can’t believe Shrimpy knew about it before I did!!” he complained.

“That’s all on you buddy.” He answered, amused, and then laid next to him.

“So… now me can kiss in public?” he asked, getting excited at the idea of smooching sessions at lunch time.

“I guess… tho I would prefer we didn’t do it in front of _everybody_.” Kuroo laughed. Kenma was still Kenma.

“I agree, it would be best if we found a place more intimate where we wouldn’t have to hold ourselves back.”

“That’s not what I meant.” He said, sounding exhasperated again, but just the right amount this time. “Besides, we’re always alone in my room or yours. We can just wait till then.” Kuroo realised he was grinning at the idea. It was amazing really, how in spite of being so dense he always landed on his feet.

“Yeah, like right now.” He teased, and to his surprise, Kenma suddenly straddled his hips and leaned in to kiss him.

“I can’t believe you thought I would be doing this if I wasn’t serious about you.” He said, while pressing his hands firmly on Kuroo’s chest.

“Well… you weren’t doing exactly this….” He answered to Kenma’s lips, grinning.

“Oh, but I wanted to.” Kenma whispered in his ear.

“Boys! Go to sleep!” Kenma’s mom shouted from their bedroom across the floor.

After a startled pause, they both began uncontrollably giggling while simultaneously shushing at each other. When they finally were able to stop, Kenma wrapping his stomach with his arms and Kuroo wiping a tiny tear from the corner of his eye from the effort of supressing his laughter, he looked at Kenma and a rush of emotion came over him.

“I love you so much.” He said, not thinking twice about it.

“I love you too you dumb bitch.” Answered Kenma before leaning in and resuming the kissing.

They didn’t sleep at all that night.

**Author's Note:**

> Soooooo, i hope you enjoyed this!  
> I wrote this in like a couple hours. I literally finished it with my beta (the amazing [Millie_Jean](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Millie_Jean/pseuds/Millie_Jean)  
> , who i love dearly) sitting right next to me, the both of us giggling.  
> I promised myself I wouldn't post it until I finished my other fic, [Tsukishima is late](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28624404/chapters/70159329)  
> but, like, it's almost finished? I'm just missing the epilogue? Anyways, I just really wanted to post this.  
> If you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writting it, and would like to consider leaving Kudos and a Kind Comment, I would really appreciate it! I live for the comments, I literally check my inbox several times a day.  
> See ya!


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